Blogging Delays

Blogging is a challenge at Christmastime. Especially for people who blog during the lunch hour. I have all kinds of stories that catch my eye, but there are lunch plans.

Yesterday was a get-together at a restaurant with former co-workers to catch up on how everyone's doing and get the pulse of the IT job market out here. It still stinks, but not as much as it did when I was looking for a job and finally got this one. I got lost on the way to the restaurant (I'm thinking a GPS system would be a good idea for my mom and me on our RV trip around the country), but I got there, and we had a good time. One of the guys got a good lead for the kind of job he's looking for.

Today is our department potluck. I remembered to bring my whole wheat rolls and some butter (yes, the real stuff). So I may not have any time today, either, for a real post.

And I've got ideas burning a hole in my pocket...

Update:

The potluck is over now.

They had raffle prizes. Last year, the budget the admins had to work with was minimal, so we only had a few prizes to raffle off. So early this year, one of the admins started buying goodies at Costco: Cup-A-Soup, candy bars, Nutri-Grain bars, and whatever else looked like people might want to buy it. She marked it up enough to make a profit for the raffle prize fund, but not so much that nobody wanted to buy anything, and by December the fund was nice and big.

They had so many prizes that people in the department are now joking about being the only loser: "I was the special one whose number was not called." Really, though, there were about half a dozen people (OK, maybe 15) who didn't win. Out of almost 100.

So if you're the one who plans the department potluck--or if you know the person who does it--you might want to suggest the Costco goodies as a way of getting lots of good prizes for next year...