So anyhow, I've had a pretty busy couple of days. Monday, I finally fixed the EGR valve in my truck so that I could get a vehicle inspection. And yesterday I managed to lose my keys. I thought I had left them in the door lock when I was getting stuff out while parked at work. But I had a spare key, so I went home. I finally installed the new door locks on the house doors that I've been putting off for five years, since that keychain had the only key to those locks. Then after all that I noticed that I had left my keys in the passenger side lock.

But that's nothing.

Today I got RIFfed (that's "redundancy" to you Brits) due to a company reorganization. With really good severance, good savings in the bank, sitting on a ton of purchased stock that I never bothered to cash in because I hadn't needed the money, and the company stock finally having some life again making it worth selling my stock options.

What that means is that I will probably have enough finances to sustain me at least through the end of next year, should I decide to do so. I've been working pretty solid for the past ten years, with only a couple of 2-week vacations (my vacation days were mostly Thursdays/Fridays before SF and anime conventions), mostly at two jobs. I really needed a sabbatical right now. And of course you can guess what I would like to do with that time.

Before all this happened, I had already been considering trying to live on my savings for a few months. It wouldn't be the first time for me, as I had a somewhat successful shareware program back in the late '80s before internet or even CD-R. But now it's actually realistic for me to go for this.

There is still a lot of stuff I need to get done over the next two months while I'm still officially an employee with a paycheck (like re-financing my mortgage), but after that I should start to have lots of free time to work on FUN stuff. And from the moderate response I've gotten over the past few months from having a resume on Monster and Dice, I shouldn't have too much trouble finding a job when I need to get one.