Money, get away...

...Get a good job with good pay and you're okay... (thanks Pink Floyd)

Some days I wish that we didn't have to deal with money. As that late, great philosopher the Notorious BIG once stated, "mo money, mo problems". Well, in the case of our family, the current situation is "less money, mo problems". Now that Rachel is staying home with the kids, we are adjusting to a rather precipitous drop in income. The solution to this problem involves two related ideas: 1) reduce expenses, and 2) increase income. As for reducing expenses, we've done about as much as we can, including the recent disconnection of my beloved satellite TV service with TiVo (*sniff*). But, alas, it's still not enough to stop the hemorrhaging of our savings. So, I decided to get a temporary second job. I thought about returning to pizza delivery, but the rise in gas prices definitely makes that job less lucrative. Retail is always an option, but working at the mall or Best Buy or Home Depot for $7/hr just wouldn't be worth it. So, I decided to talk to the HR person at Covance and see if they would let me do some extra work for separate pay. I'm an exempt employee, which means I don't get paid for overtime. But, I figured that if I worked in another department, doing lab grunt work, they might be willing to pay me extra for it. Well, they agreed! And, even better, I'll be working in the same lab that I'm currently working in, but doing different stuff. They're still working out the details of the pay rate, but I'm sure it'll be more that McDonald's! Bottom line: I'll be working about 10 hours of overtime every week, and incoming will be increasing. Yay!

Also: I went and looked in the mailbox yesterday, and there was a check for $300 from our mortgage company, payment for overage on our escrow this year. Hooray! God has promised to take care of us, and He's showing us every day that He is faithful.

To top it all off, Gen Con is less than 2 weeks away now. I've been practicing playing Heroscape and Magic to get ready for my tourneys. I still think I'm going to get shellacked. But I'll have fun doing it!

Family Reunion - A True Story

Well, Sunday was Rachel's family's family reunion. Here's a little summary. I swear that I am not making up or even embellishing anything that you're about to read.

The reunion was hosted by my wife's aunt LeAnn, a short, spunky woman who has recently had surgery to remove a large tumor in her brain. She was a little loopy to begin with, and from all that happened at the reunion, I don't think the tumor contained any of her loopiness. It's all still there. The moment I walked in the door, she pulled out her brain x-rays from an envelope to pass around for everyone to look at and admire. We ate a ridiculously big meal, after which LeAnn said that we should all go out into the back yard for a "surprise". The crazed look in her eye made me think that the "surprise" very well might involve drinking Kool-Aid and waiting for the comet to arrive.

We all shuffled out to the back yard, a little confused and curious. LeAnn announced that the theme of this reunion was "Christmas In July", and therefore no Christmas would be complete without a visit from Santa. So entered my brother-in-law, dressed in a homemade "summer Santa" outfit, complete with hat, red shirt and shorts trimmed with white fur, a white chin goatee, and a pair of Vegas Elvis-style sunglasses. And a pair of sandals with jingle bells attached. He's carrying three enormous cardboard boxes of wrapped gifts. Like, 40 of them. All wrapped in Christmas paper. First, the small children are given their gifts, which consist of some Matchbox cars and other inexpensive new toys. Not bad, I think. The kids all loved their presents. But, they would be the only ones enjoying this event. We all were given 2 gifts to open. At this point, it was time for LeAnn to let us in on her little secret. Here's the deal: LeAnn decided she wanted to clean all the old junk out of her basement, so she wrapped up everything a gave it to her family as presents!!! Here are some of the "gifts" that we received:

A box of miniature Snickers bars (which LeAnn said were 4 years old)
An embroidered sweatshirt, with the embroidery only half done
A hideously ugly metal votive candle holder, complete with reindeer pattern (my wife got this one)
A used dart board
A car trunk cargo net
Various pairs of women's socks and tights (used or new? who knows?)
A used "Orange County Choppers" baseball cap.
A broken fishing reel (there were a total of 12 of these)

After opening our gifts, we had the opportunity to trade with a family member to get a better gift. I tried to trade my stuff to Ethan for one of his Matchbox cars - he said it was a lousy trade.

So, that was my Sunday afternoon. Pretty standard, really. ;-)

Weekend Completion!

Well, the busy weekend has come to a close. And I made it with all my hair still on my head. :-) Erin's dedication on Sunday went really well, and we spent the afternoon with Rachel's family and my mom. Good times.

But, by far the most interesting part of the weekend was the 'Mavens' meeting that I attended on Saturday. After posting on the Gen Con Forums for the past few months, I finally made a connection with the actual people who are behind the screen names and avatars. And it was pretty cool. Being my first time, I sort of felt like a junior high school kid at his first dance, trying to make conversation and be cool, but with intermittent periods of staring at the wall and stirring the straw in my Coke. But I found the folks in the Mavens to be, overall, very friendly and accepting. There's another meeting in 2 weeks that I will probably attend, and I signed up to help with the setup of the big Pre-GenCon party that the Mavens organize. I figure it will be a good way to get to know some fellow gamers in the area. Who knows, someone who could end up being one of my best friends could have been in that meeting. More to follow...

So, it's time to gear myself up for a big, busy week at work. Lots of science to be done, you know? ;-)

Busy weekend ahead...

This has been a really busy summer. It seems like every weekend is just chock full of activities. This weekend is Erin's baby dedication at church, so Rachel's family will be in town starting this evening. They haven't visited in quite a while, so it'll be good to see them. This afternoon, I'm attending a "Mavens" meeting, which is a group of local gamers who get together to plan a rather extensive pre-GenCon party called "The Stink". I've spent a good amount of time lately on the Gen Con message forums, which is where I learned about this group. Although the internet can do a good job of masking someone's identity, many of the people on the forums seem cool and genuine. To be able to meet some of them in person today is an exciting prospect.

I've been trying to figure out a way to turn my interest in gaming into a way to bring people together, and maybe eventually to spark some discussions about life and God and other things. So, I thought that a bi-weekly gaming night might fit the bill. I have about a few work friends and a few church friends who would probably be interested. It would have to be board games, since RPGs would probably take too much time and effort for the crowd I'm thinking about. But that's a good start. And, my office mate has dozens of games, many of which I've never played. Every time I've mentioned this idea to my friends, they've all said "yeah, that would be cool". So, I think I just need to set a date and do it. I'll let you know how it goes. :-)

Recovering from the 4th...

So, I'm recovering from 5 straight days of 4th of July weekend excitement, followed by 2 pretty mediocre days at work. I don't want to see another hot dog or hear another Black Cat go off for quite a while. I went through some kind of emotional time warp yesterday, feeling really depressed and defeated about this whole job/career/money thing. I think that when things in life are difficult (as they are now), there are some people who find an extra measure of inner strength and "come through in the clutch" with rousing victory and success. I, on the other hand, want to throw in the towel, take my ball and go pout in my room. It's sad, but it's the brutal truth. So, lately I've been toying with quitting my job and doing something (anything) else, toying with finishing my seminary degree, toying with getting a master's degree in something else, toying with getting a second job to make more money, etc etc etc. But, today I realize the truth: toys are for little boys. I'm a man, and I have a great wife and great kids, a nice house, 2 decent cars, a good church, supportive friends, and a God who loves me and sent his son to save me. Things aren't so bad. And, sometimes there are times in our lives when we just need to do what's in front of us. I think this is one of those times. Now, having said that, I think that I will be starting back up with my seminary degree, either this fall or next spring. A lot of that will depend on whether or not my company will pay for it. It seems unlikely, since a Master of Arts in Religion is not quite science-related, but the wording of the tuition reimbursement policy is somewhat vague. I have a meeting with HR tomorrow to discuss it. If they will pay, HOORAY! If not, Rachel and I have agreed that taking out some loans for this is not the worst thing in the world. Ever since 2000, it's been pretty obvious that theological study is what I want to do. It's what excites me, far more than bioanalytical chemistry ever will. So, even if I never do anything vocational with this Master's degree, I'll at least have it on my wall.

Gen Con is only a month away now, and I'm getting quite excited about it. I just found out that 3 of the folks from the show MythBusters are going to be at Gen Con, busting a myth LIVE! So, I just HAD to get tickets to that event. In preparation for the 2 Magic: The Gathering tournaments that LoRD and I will be playing in, we decided to play in a local MTG tournament at our FLGS last Friday night. It was, to say the least, an experience. We learned that a) although we're not as hard-core into Magic as some of these guys, we still can hang with tournament-style play, b) we don't suck as badly as we thought we did, and c) we still suck pretty badly. I did end up with the "Sportsmanship Award" at the end of the night, since I had to sit out the last game due to an odd number of players. I'm now the proud owner of an FNM foil "Wild Mongrel" card. Yeah, I know you're jealous. :-)