Tone Parsons

Sometimes life gets in the way of your plans.  No matter how well you have it all planned out, things can change, and suddenly, you’re launched into the ether.  This is what happened to me.

After working at my company for 6 years, I finally got my dream job as the Senior Web Developer.  They paid me to do what I loved the most… playing with photoshop and illustrator and creating web based applications.  They treated me like a king, paid me very well,  and let me run down whatever path I chose.  Life was unbelievably good!

Then, the floor fell out.

Friday was my last day at the office.  I packed up my things and went home at the end of the day.  I’ve been placed on disability because of my back.  While I’ll live the rock-n-roll lifestyle from now on (wake up, take a large amount of drugs, play with my guitar), I’m not very happy about it.  I’m only 41… far too early to retire!

*sigh*

Luckily, I have insurance for just such an occurrence.   It covers me until age 65, and I’ll still be getting most of a paycheck during that time (most being 70%).  While that’s a pretty big cut in pay, it beats nothing… and I was paid well, so I’ll be ok financially.

Now I have to figure out how to fill my days.

I haven’t posted for a while, so I decided today’s the day.

My wife and I made a purchase the weekend before last, but I’m not allowed to talk about it (suffice it to say… it’s pretty!). More to come later on that.

I’ve got an appointment with my doctor tomorrow to discuss my friggin’ back. There isn’t such a thing as pain free any more, and the commute to work is killing me (getting bounced around on the bus doesn’t do me any favors).  Fortunately, my boss is very damn cool, and is allowing me to work from home a couple of days per week.

I’ve been good about taking my meds, but they no longer kill the feeling like I have knives stuck into me in several places. If they dump any more narcotics into me, I’ll be a complete zombie.

The joys of being me!

Other stuff: um… there really isn’t any other stuff to write about. I’m just filling space here.

My wife and I were talking last night about days. Specifically, how many days we’ve been together as compared to how many days we’ve been alive (it’s nearly 50%). So, I decided to put it all together via a rather clever java script to give it some perspective.

• I’ve been alive for days
• My wife and I have been together for days
• I’ve been a father for days
• I got out of college days ago
• I’ve been with my current employer for days
• My back has been toast for approximately days
• My youngest son will graduate from college in around days
• My house will be paid off in days
• I will be elegible to retire in days

That’s a lot of damn days!

With the exception of my being stupidly ill, I had a fantastic birthday!!

The take so far:

Dremel 400-3/70H 400 Series XPR Rotary Tool Kit

This was the gift from my wife and I totally love it!!

I’ve already used this to fix a door that sticks and have plans to do about a bazillion other things with it. Oh…. how sexy is this!?!

It came with 70 different attachments (I need to pick up a few more for it) and a very cool case designed to hold them all and more. Very damn cool indeed!!

Bioshock (for windows)

This was a gift from my kids. I’ve been needing a new game for a while now, and this one is pretty cool. While I haven’t gotten very far into it so far, it looks pretty good (well, it would look fantastic if I upgraded my PC).

I installed it, played it for a bit, and then took more NyQuil and went to bed. I plan on giving it another run tonight 🙂

We had cake and ice cream and I got a few phone calls with people singing happy birthday to me (which is always funny!). My sister has a gift for me which I’ve yet to see and my friend Tom in Alaska is shipping me a bunch of halibut and salmon which he caught (mmmmmmmm…. nummy!!).

Of course, when my kids broke out the saws-all and went after me (they wanted to cut me open and count the rings), things went a little bad, but I guess I can still run faster than they can, so it was all good!