New Years Eve. Not what most think of as New Years Eve since it is just 1:35 am on December 31. I will probably write more when I get home from work tonight, but it will be nearly 2012 when I do get home. So this may actually be my last opportunity to blog in 2011.
2011 has been an up and down year for me. It began with me still employed at Lowe’s in Waynesboro but pretty sure I wouldn’t be a lot longer. I was constantly in trouble with the senior management because I refused to be bullied and choose to think. Thinking got me in trouble. I had reached the point of hating my job, first one in my life. I had left jobs for many reasons, but none ever because I hated what I was doing.
Lowe’s told me I had to go one day in March and I left with mixed emotions. I wasn’t happy about being fired, but I was ecstatic about no longer working for Lowe’s. As it turns out, I seem to have not established a single lasting friendship from my over 4 years there. If I was younger I believe some of my friendships would still be vibrant, but I am so much older than some of my friends there our interest are enough different we just don’t cross paths since I left. Two people I met I will always be glad I got to work them both. A husband and wife, Steve and Kate Lallas. Steve was my zone manager for a while and we were like cats and dogs for a while, even had a serious run in that ended up in the store manager’s office. But after that, we became friends. He left the store and his wife Kate came and eventually ended up working in Hardware with me. I always looked forward to working with Kate and looked forward to seeing Steve when he would come in with their son whose name I am ashamed I can’t recall right now. I’m thinking Ben, but don’t know.
There were other friends, but not lifetime type friends. I really only have a coupe of those.
The time off without a job proved to be productive for me personally. I managed to put together the where-with-all to study and pass two very difficult tests for my A+ certification. If you don’t know what that is, then it isn’t important for you. It is very important in being employed in the computer maintenance and support field, however. I also studied and audited some classes to get my Amateur Radio Technician’s license back. I first got my Tech license in 1987 when it still required copying Morse code. I allowed my license to lapse in 2007 after having it 20 years. So when I was without a job I decided to get it back.
Some of the reason I decided to get back into it was because my very good friend Wayne Bowyers, a General class license holder, had been stricken by Guillain-Barre syndrome about a year before. We really thought, some of us including the UVA physicians who attended him thought we had lost him. His former wife Donna refused to give up on him and prevented the “smart” docs from pulling the life support system, and Wayne did come back and has made a miraculous recovery. He still has some deficits but he has come a long, long way. And he is a true life friend. I blogged about his progress on another blog several times.
All of that to say I renewed my interest in amateur radio partly because of Wayne. I also studied at the same time to take my General class license test. Wayne and I and his brother in law went to a ham fest in Berryville, VA in August where his brother in law and I successfully passed our Technician class test, and I stayed and passed my General class test. I then petitioned the ARRL, the governing body of amateur radio, for my old call sign back and I am once again N4RVG. Thank you very much.
About 45 days after passing my amateur radio tests I interviewed with Shentel in Edinburg, VA. I went “live” with Shentel as a Technical Support Representative on September 26. I will have by tonight, true New Years Eve 2011, worked 14 weeks. I thought it was going to be an easy job to learn and that once I learned it would be pretty boring. Wrong, oh so wrong. I struggled to learn about troubleshooting CATV, Internet distribution and modems of different kinds, and phones of different types. But learn I did, and I am doing much better these days. Or nights. I work from 2 to 11 at night Tuesday through Saturdays. There are NO dull or boring nights. Yes. There are a lot of the same type calls, but none are really the same. I’ve been chewed out, cussed at, yelled at, dragged through the muck, but I’ve also met some amazing and wonderful people via a phone connection.
Georgiann and I put our kitchen rebuild on hold for the most part while I was unemployed, then finished it the week after Thanksgiving. A few minor things still need to be done, but it looks very nice and it turned out pretty good.
I have many thoughts and ideas about 2012 but if I write about it at all it will be after I get home from work on this last day of 2011.
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