Rollercoaster

and no I'm not talking about our much loved and recently fought over trail at the Science Center. I'm just talking about day to day life and everything that goes into it. It seems everything these days is in a whirlwind- work, family, finances, weather, etc, etc. Let's break it down shall we?

Work: Just when you think you're on top, a wave of stuff comes smashing back over you. Take for instance this morning. I had one major thing on my desk to accomplish by days end and any various number of small side items. Along about 8 o'clock I get a call that one of my sub contractors doesn't seem to be fulfilling his obligations to meet deadlines on the jobsite and they want a meeting at 1 this afternoon to make sure I keep his butt in line. OK, so that throws a wrench into the day and now I'm scrambling to make sure all my ducks are in a row too. I decide that we should take over part of his work load and now I've got several large scale items on my desk, plus a phone call to fill up my day and then some.

Family: Actually, family has been pretty decent. Miranda and Corley were out of town a couple days last week and I was able to get the house cleaned. I also had a good steak dinner with Squirrel and his family on Friday night. It was nice to kick back and chill. Saturday was pretty busy as we hit the Science Center in the AM for some Halloween fun and then Night Eyes Saturday afternoon along with going out to eat that night. Sunday was pretty lazy though as Corley and I hung out in the house and watched the wind attempt to remove the shingles from everyone's houses.

Finances: I've been eyeing these pretty close as of late with all the ups and downs in the market plus the general piss poor shape of our economy. Things look pretty decent for us, but you can never make too sure. I even earmarked some money to possibly purchase a new mountain bike. Now, a week later, I've seen my quarterly IRA statement (down over 20% for the year), had our home equity line of credit shut down because they estimate my house is worth MUCH less (over $20K) than they told me 1 year ago, and I'm still wondering how our taxes, year end bonus, and sales for our business are going to shake out for the rest of the year. I hate credit card debt and luckily, we really don't carry any balances unless it benefits us with something like 0% financing and the like. This means we're just fine financially, but I like having the cushion of the line of credit for emergencies and/or to use as a slush fund in case something too good to resist should pop up (read new mountain bike). Funny thing is, I think this very thing happened to a number of other people who are probably a bit less responsible when it comes to spending and now they're up shit creek having no more access to easy cash. This leads to the current housing storm we're all hearing about and in turn drops my property value...

Weather: Wow, I can't believe the wild ass weather for fall. We go from torrential rains, to cold, to warm, to windstorms, to cold again in a week. Pretty wild. At least the winds helped speed the drying process for the center trails and word is they're about perfect for now. I'm looking forward to riding since it's been over a week now. I'm itching to get out and I have to practice up a bit for this weekend's Dirty Du. I've teamed up with Heather from PRC to ride the relay portion while she runs. I can't wait!