What's going on?

Hi all - if you've been following things here, you know that my group was suddenly further reduced, including me, so my illustrious career in mobile phone design is more or less over... What am I doing now that I have an extra 40 hours a week?

1) Looking for the next job - already working on that, had a few phone calls already. Ideally, I work out a start date of March 30, which is just after my 'official' last day (60 days notice thing), and would allow me to keep/save/use all of the 26 weeks of severance. Collecting unemployment benefits requires that I do a certain amount of time searching for a new position.

2) Working through some career transition classes. Part of the severance package is 6 months of transition support services - consulting to get my resume in order, interviewing, negotiation help - along with a placement service. So, I start through some of those classes this week and next.

3) Work around the house - there are a lot of projects that haven't been getting done, and now they are. We're figuring that if we have to move (seems likely) we should finish all the things we started. If we don't have to move, then we get a like-new house... :) Some of the things that have to be done:

• Paint the kitchen cabinets
• Fix a big hole in the kitchen wall with a bunch of wires coming out of it (don't know who made that, we found it when the suspended ceiling was removed)
• Paint the kitchen walls
  
• Finish installing baseboards in the master bedroom
• Paint the master bathroom (clean up the mildew first)
• Clean mildew from the master bath shower, and replace some caulk and grout that is loose
• Figure out how to fix the shower once-and-for-all so that it stops leaking
• Fix the big hole in the family room ceiling below the shower drain...
• Fix a big hole in the kids bathroom wall (caused when a sliding door fell off track)
• Paint the kids bathroom
• Paint the upstairs hall
• Touch up some ceiling spots that got wall paint on them in the dining and living rooms
• Paint trim in the master bedroom
• Fix the front door lockset
• Paint the window frames in the basement
• Replace a basement door that was abused by toys (and is a little holey)
• Replace some ceiling tiles in the basement
• lots of paint touch-up in the basement (maybe repaint the basement)
• Finish updating the phone wiring (figure out which wires go to phone jacks that were removed...)
• Paint ceiling on the basement stairs
• Paint celing in the office
• Clean out the fireplace (still ashes in there from the last fire 5 years ago)
  
• etc

You get the picture - plenty of stuff to do. At some point we also need to look into replacing most of the carpet in the house - a lot is +25 years old, and well worn at this point. If we do have to sell, and it doesn't happen when there is snow on the ground, add to the list some major grass renovation work and garden cleanup...

4) Update my coding skills a little bit - it has been a while since I actually wrote software... (vs. telling other people how to write it) Anybody need some programs written?

5) Goof off. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry today - not many people there, which was great. I need another 400,000 points in Lego Star Wars to buy the minikit detector, and find the last minikit I'm missing - then I'll have completed the game.

So, I don't have to worry much about going insane from boredom...