If life begins at 40, I'm being born today!

I am trying to take new direction with my life, though, especially when it comes to what I do for work. I've been laid off enough times from various jobs with shrinking workforces that it's become important I find a field that's expanding. You know, 'cause money matters . . . at least when the mortgage comes due, alas.

Writing is still my "career," of course, even if I haven't been putting fingers to keyboard in the fiction arena much lately -- "depression sucks" is all I'll say about that. But I need steady employment in order to keep the wheels of the household budget greased consistently. This on-again/off-again stuff is for the birds.

Some recent ideas I've floated involve going back to school to get some specific skill set I don't yet have but which is in high demand, and will hopefully be in demand years from now, too. Or perhaps hiring myself out as a tutor or home health aide. Or finding some kind of on-line gig, like writer or tech guru. I have some skill at the latter, but not enough, and would have to learn more before I'd be market material, lending more weight to the schooling idea, but that means finding programs and classes and applying for financial aid and . . .

Anyway, there're obviously lots of possibilities out there, at this second (third?) starting point in my life, so I better get cracking.

Posting from lovely PDX, waiting for our flight to Denver, and then to Madison, and am happy to report fast, free WiFi is alive and well . . . wouldn't have known it from the motel we stayed in last night. How good is an amenity if you can't use it for anything beyond blood-pressure raising?

Nuthin', that's what.

Supposedly, the hotel in Madison has WiFi, too, so hopefully I'll get to post more about the Con, as it's happening, so to speak. We'll see about that.

Yesterday, I got my new driver's license; had to renew it before my upcoming b-day. I was looking at my old license before turning it in, and then compared it to the new one. My face is . . . fleshier than it was 6 years ago, but my hair is about the same length. The biggest difference, though, has got to be my eyes. I look much . . . tireder in this new pic. I guess 6 years of chronic pain'll do that. (Not to mention a bit of a problem getting sleep.)

Update: apparently PDX won't let me update the page, though . . . sigh. I've got it posting now, from the Madison Concourse. Nice.

Got a couple more stories in the mail this past week, and even finished a short piece (about 1200 words) that'd been sitting on my harddrive for about 3 years, mocking me. Got that one passed out at my workshop, for review this coming Tuesday.

Got the new printer hooked up this week, and networked in with Lappy, after having to reconfigure the network for Lappy, TiVo, and The Husband's Nameless desktop; alas, mine was one of the not easily installed versions. There's something wiggy going on with Nameless, 'cuz while it says it's part of the network, and can find the printer and all during installation, when I go to actually print something, nada.

The printer itself is very speedy, but I was unable to find the paper stopping thing on the end of the receiving tray, and thus printed-on paper shot out of it and flew around the room like a frickin' snowstorm. I put the thing on the floor to mitigate this somewhat, and then, a miracle happened. The Husband found the stopper. Yay!

And now to do some yard work, specifically clearing out the plants in the atrium before we put down a couple inches of lava rock and white stone.

I got Lappy McLappenstein for Christmas, and it's wirelessly connected to the secured home network, which also has the Tivo on it, and Old faithful (my desktop) and The Husband's desktop, which I reconfigured to be wireless, too. But neither Lappy nor The Husband's unnamed desktop will use the printer that Old Faithful has plugged into it, even though The Husband's computer used to use it just fine, before it got all wireless and sh*t, and I've tried reconfiguring the printer, uninstalling and installing, changing drivers and all, about a dozen times. Besides, though the printer still runs well, the heads are old and it's starting to really fade out, even with new cartridges.

So now I have a new wireless printer on order. It looks keen! I note the reviews on Amazon are sometimes glowing and sometimes not, with some folks setting up the wireless part with ease, and others, uh, not so much. I hope I'm a sometimes, rather than a not, 'cuz being frustrated with a new toy does horrible things to the psyche.

But 36 ppm??!! Hot damn!