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As you all know I’m into most of the social networking sites, you can find me at Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn on a regular basis. And it’s been great “reconnecting” with past colleagues.

But when I look at my list of contacts, I get a large amount of career envy. Just some of the titles my ex-peers hold:

• Director of IT
• CIO
• Vice President of IT
• Financial Controller
• CTO
• Owner of their own consulting business

And here am I, peasant worker bee for a big conglomerate. I know some people will say ‘but you moved across an ocean etc’ and that might be true, and might even be a ‘big deal’ but ultimately I’m about to turn 43 and I am just another programmer on the treadmill. How come all these guys did so much better than me?

A lot of big things happening this weekend, many of them without me (can’t be in three places at once):

• The launch of the PS3 in Japan
• The AOPA Expo 2006 in Palm Springs, seems like I miss it every year it in CA
• The Brawley Cattle Call Rodeo. The event has already started but this weekend sees the highlight with the parade Saturday morning, and the various rodeos throughout the weekend. Yee-hah! And all that.

I suppose that if CostCo has Christmas decorations for sale in September, I should not be surprised that the local stores have switched to “winter fashion” and its now impossible to buy a short-sleeved shirt anywhere. Only long sleeve lumberjack shirts and nice wool-knit sweaters for sale now. Don’t worry that the temps are still in the high 90s and, lets face it, aren’t going much below 90 even in the “winter”. This is Southern California and, dammit, we’ll wear scarves and down jackets even if its still 75F out, even if we do look stupid.

This past weekend I flew Teri to Camarillo for a surprise trip to Santa Rosa Island. The island lies 40 miles off the coast of Ventura and I had signed us up for a tour with Channel Islands Aviation who would fly us there, and arrange for a guide.

The self-flying was fun, including a return trip with only one working brake, and you can read about it on my flying blog if you wish.

I can heartily recommend the tour. The island feels quite isolated and is beautiful with untouched beaches and rolling hills, just beware the high winds and the hunters (though hopefully they will be gone in 2011). We had a great guide, Inge, a volunteer with the National Park service who had a great passion and knowledge for the island. The trip across the sea to the island was also fun, our pilot Curtis skilfully brought the plane down on the dirt strip in very high winds and thanks to several people not showing up he was able to join us for the tour.

To the pictures I took, click on the photo above or go to this link to my flickr photoset.

Got our electricity bill for July – $513!!! Yikes.

Oh no, the east coast is suffering a heat index of 115F – call out the national guard, the world is ending. Out in Brawley, its been an actual 115F for a lot of the time, and will be again and stay that way before the summer is out. So do what we do, turn up the a/c, strip down to your undies, and lay in front of a fan.

P.S. Don’t tell me that its ok because it’s a “dry heat” 🙂

The newspaper printed a final article on their Beat the Press competition this weekend. Our subscription ended so I don’t have a scan of the article at the moment. Bottom line is that a Mexican sports writer won the whole thing, and the top member of the public came third. I got the next best public showing, coming in joint fifth with a couple of other sports editors but since no one beat the press, the $100 goes unawarded.

[Back to our regularly scheduled programming]

Sat in the food court over looking the ice rink this evening, a family takes the table next to me, mother, father and three small kids. But before the kids can sit down, the parents bring out the wet naps and wipe down the table. Yeah, the table could do with a wipe. Next they wipe down all the chairs, including seats and frames. Well, they are all wearing shorts. Finally, more wet naps come out and they wipe down the metal railing over which you can watch the action on the ice. I suppose you can’t be too careful in these germ infested hovels.

2234Today’s paper has the headline that Sanders is leading the competition. Yes, by some miracle I am currently in first place in the newspaper’s Beat the Press competition, with 33 points. There is certainly no way I can win as the only points available to me are if Germany make the final, all other results get me nothing. Now, if its an Italy v Portugal final then maybe I could still win the $100… but its fun to see my name in the headlines out on top.

Some sad news from home in Brawley, Erin’s bird died today. I “inherited” Melanie when I moved into the house 4 years ago and although she was very much Erin’s pet I made sure she got fed, watered and some small amount of attention. I often referred to her as “the forgotten pet” as she’d just sit in her cage quietly most of the time being ignored. She’d come to life when Erin was around, talk and sqawk like crazy for her attention. We had a spell where I thought she was sick a couple of years ago but recently she seemed full of beans so I am quite surprised. She may not have provided the attention and affection that our dogs bring but she enriched our lives in her small way.