No, I’m not talking about the basketball thing which apparently costs companies $600 million in lost productivity every year. I’m just referring to the month in general. Since the last time I posted anything here, I lost a friend, played host to the folks, learned that my untouchable company is getting touched, bought a car, sold a camera….and still haven’t gone camping.
On Monday, March 6th, I received the news – along with the rest of the world – that AT&T had voiced their intention to buy BellSouth, the company for which I’ve worked for the last 8 years and one that I thought was far too large to ever be taken over. Believe it or not, that’s sort of a bonus for me when it comes to selecting where I want to work. Since I moved to Atlanta 16 years ago, I’ve gone through 4 “strategic alliances,” and I’m really not into doing that. Silly me – I thought BellSouth had planned to buy AT&T a few years back. The tables have apparently turned, and in all likelihood I’ll be sweating out yet another merger in the next year to eighteen months. Oh joy.
This happened, incidentally, just about one week after I’d been informed that I was immune from the most recent round of layoffs within BellSouth management. Yep. I got to breathe easy for a whole week….
On March 8th, David Willard passed away after fighting a long battle with cirrhosis of the liver. Dave, also known as Dewey, had been a good friend for over 20 years and – while we were both aware that his prognosis was not good – his death still came as somewhat of a shock. I had talked on the phone with him just the previous Saturday night, when he called me to talk about a basketball game. On Wednesday the 8th, his sister called me to let me know that he’d gone into the hospital suddenly on Tuesday afternoon and had died about 24 hours later. It’s a strange feeling to know that someone that you’ve known since high school is gone. Must admit that shed more than a few tears.
His memorial was in Greenville on the 10th, so Jenny and I drove up to pay our respects. I did pretty good through most of the service, but did sob a bit near the end. At one point, a song was played that I had played for Dave a couple of years ago on the way back from a football game. David ended up playing the thing about 9 billion straight times in my car, until I finally told him to cut it out. I later burned a copy of the CD for him. When I asked his brother why he’d played that particular song, he said that he’d just found the CD among Dave’s things and decided to play it for no reason. Kind of freaked me out, to be honest. But in a good way.
The following Monday, I had a couple of our mutual friends over to my house and we had sort of an unofficial wake for the Dewman. Told a few stories, hoisted more than a few beers, played playstation, grilled some steaks, stayed up late, and took Tuesday off to do more of the same. It was a nice time.
I believe it was the weekend after that that Mom and Dad finally came down to Atlanta for a long-delayed visit. I was a tad nervous, as it was the first time they’d seen the house since Jenny and I divorced, but I apparently haven’t destroyed the place too awful much. I must admit that I took a bit of pride in showing them to their quarters – a guestroom that I refinished last year. Prior to that, it had been a disaster area used mainly by Jenny’s and my four cats as a great big litterbox. When I redid it, I had to throw out the carpet, paint the floor and floorboards, and install hardwood – just to get rid of the smell of urine. I also painted the walls and ceiling, put in some curtains, a bed, chair, lamps, shelves, dresser, nightstands, etc. I’ve always been pretty pleased with the result, but this was the first time that someone actually STAYED in the room.
Dad was quite helpful during the visit, assisting me in mounting my television (a big flat-screen job) on the wall on Saturday, and helping to hang three sets of very wide (72″) mini-blinds on Sunday. I also got to show off my 17-gazillion btu grill on Sunday, making burgers for the three of us. Of course, I ended up serving them raw and had to recook them, but hey….I tried.
Sometime around the 15th, I got my annual bonus from Bellsouth. While not as substantial as last year’s, it was still a nice little chunk of change, and I took advantage of it instantly by paying off my car. Got my tax refund a few days later and was so excited about the number of digits in my checking account balance that, when a friend said he wanted a new digital camera, I immediately offered to sell him one of my older ones that I rarely use. For those of you who don’t know it, I’ve got (well, I *had*) three pretty expensive cameras, so unloading one of those is going to make my financial self feel quite a bit better.
I’ve been trying to find a weekend to go camping for about 6 months, but so far it hasn’t worked out. For a long time, it was beautiful all week and rained all weekend. When I finally got a nice weekend, it happened to be the one set aside for Mom and Dad’s visit. Thought about it again this past weekend, but it was just too cold. And next weekend I’ve promised to take care of a friend’s cat, so that’s out too. Oh well…maybe I’ll get a chance sometime in April.
At work, much of my time recently has been consumed by a major rewrite of our external website. Additionally, we’re ramping up IPTV (trial is set for August), so I’m getting to build a lot of servers and trying to make myself valuable. Still looking forward to vacations, though – the first decent one is planned for Memorial Day weekend and the week following it. Also looking forward to spending some time in Canada with Cy and T in July, and I’m hoping to go to Maine again this year.
But for now, I’m still in Atlanta and still working.
And that should get you all caught up in the fascinating saga which is my life.
