Dec 31
I thought I'd put out a year-end update for anybody who reads the logs and wonders what became of us.
We both spent June and July in New York State at my brother's house. We attended the high school graduation of my oldest grandchild, Mitch. (How's that possible?) We house sat while my brother and his wife went to their timeshare in St. Maarten for three weeks. (What's wrong with this picture?) And we generally enjoyed relaxing and not worrying about the weather from day to day, or a boat part breaking.
We started looking for jobs, and Barb found one right away. Ten years ago, before Barb worked at BMC Software with me, she worked for Memorial Hospital in their IT department. Several of her former coworkers there now work for Methodist Hospital, also in Houston. Those connections made her aware of an opening there for a mainframe programmer, and she got the job. She left NY on August 3rd for Houston. In her first week there, she bought us a car, found an apartment, and arranged to furnish the apartment with the furniture that she had given her son when we left. Her son landed a deal house sitting for several years and won't need the furniture during that period. The only piece missing was a bed, and she purchased one of those. She had a busy week, and started work the following Monday. She got back into the routine of a career pretty easily, although she certainly wishes we were watching a sunset from the stern of the boat most evenings.
I was keeping busy while in New York working on projects for my brother and his son-in-law. They are renovating an old house in Poughkeepsie, NY for resale and I helped on several projects there. There is also a 1978 MGB in mid-restoration that I worked on a lot. I reassembled the entire front suspension and rebuilt the engine while there. We didn't feel like entire mooches while there, just bartering for room and board.
I meanwhile was not having as good luck as Barb with the job hunt. I worked three weeks on a short contract through my brother's son-in-law's company doing some technical writing. I interviewed for a position based in New York City with BMC Software. I thought I would have an inside edge having been an employee before, but that didn't work out. I also started the longest and most severe gout attack I have ever had the day after Barb left for Texas. I was literally off my feet for three full weeks, and hobbling another week or two after that. Since I didn't respond to the medicines to treat gout, I had several expensive tests to see if maybe there was something else going on, but all were negative. In mid-September, since my job opportunity in New York hadn't worked out, I joined Barb in Houston. I have since applied for several jobs, but nothing has worked out. I am looking for something that I can do while based in Houston, and that has been limiting.
A couple weeks after returning to Houston, I had a second bad gout attack. I found a new family doctor and went to both a podiatrist and a rheumatologist. I had surgery on the big toe that I shattered twenty years ago skydiving to remove the huge bone spurs that had grown around the joint. That relieved pain in that joint and gave it mobility again, and allowed the doctor to get some joint fluid and confirm that what I do have is indeed gout. The mystery remains why I continue to have attacks although I am on the preventative medication, and why the attacks don't respond to the treatment medication.
In November we flew to Phoenix to visit my son and attend the NASCAR race there. My son's company had given race tickets to all employees and he was able to get enough to take us. It was only a three day visit, but we had fun doing some desert exploration on quads and going to the race.
Our holidays were quietly spent at home. While we were cruising, people always wondered about missing family during the holidays. But, every Thanksgiving we ended up together with other cruisers in some form of pot-luck dinner. Those dinners were all just as special as any spent with family. Since none of our family live in Houston, we ended up spending our first Thanksgiving with it being just the two of us. Not that I'm complaining. It just seemed a little ironic that that didn't happen while we were cruising. Christmas was spent similarly low-key. Our big Christmas event was to go to a movie. We went in the early afternoon and avoided the crowds. New Year eve, we went to a party in Kemah where our favorite local band, Hanna's Reef, was playing. We made it until midnight and rang in the new year amongst a bunch of old friends.
That wraps up 2009 in a nutshell. Since I am still not working, we aren't saving much for the cruising kitty. Resuming cruising at the end of 2010 is probably out of the question and may have to wait another year. Unless that lottery ticket comes in...