Stumbling Toward the Light

I dodged last year, but I have been caught in the latest wave of Oracle layoffs today. I am still waiting for information about severance and such.

The worst part of this is going to be arranging health insurance for the kids. I am trying to figure out what options are available. (COBRA, for a short while, at least, but that's a terrible choice overall.)

I did not *quite* make it to 44 years at this job. But that is the length of my career, as I am now (with high probability) retired.

I had work that I wanted to finish and I'm sorry that I won't get to do that.

You all want to hear the *funny* part?

Yesterday, I checked in the last changes that cut our calculation time on complex models by more than 50%.

Today, I am laid off.

My boss was saying that Michael Jordan ought to allowed to retire, resorting to a basketball analogy.

Instead, I hit the three-pointer with time expiring to win the game. And then got waived.

Ah, well. Time to set up the recording computer up here... :)

Today was our annual APBA baseball draft. This is an eight-team continuous ownership league, so there are a lot of very good players on the existing teams. We also have a cap on quality starting pitching, so there's a good big of jockeying for the starters available under the cap. This year, the cap was going to limit us to five or six starters.

I was drafting last, which means that the team was successful last year, a good thing. My starting lineup and bench were largely solid and hard to improve upon given what was available in the draft. My starting pitching was strong, but could always use some help. My bullpen had completely disintegrated, aided by Emmanuel Clase's foray into illegal collusion with sports betters, so it had to be completely rebuilt.

I would have liked to collect another outfielder, but the only one who really suited my needs, given that I have Juan Soto, Julio Rodriguez, Byron Buxton, and Ronald Acuna, was Roman Anthony. And he was available to me with the eighth pick of the draft, but I decided that I really needed Hunter Brown, a quality starter from the Astros, instead.

Roman Anthony was drafted with the next pick. I was not surprised.

It was now time to rebuild the bullpen, starting with a couple of strong relievers with control, Adrian Morejon and Randy Rodriguez. There was no great hurry to draft the rest of the bullpen, as there were a lot of similar relievers available, so on the fourth round, I collected catching prospect Samuel Basallo from the Orioles. He is not allowed to play this year due to limited at bats, but since I already have Moreno and Herrera at catch, that was not a problem.

In the fifth round, I drafted promising Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski -- in this case, one pick before the fellow drafting after me was prepared to take him. Yay, me!

In the sixth round, I continued collecting Jacobs. No teams really needed a shortstop which meant that talented A's rookie Jacob Wilson had gone into freefall in the draft. I stopped that fall.

The seventh and eighth rounds added two more quality relievers, Bryan Abreu and Brad Keller.

In the ninth round, I picked up Sandy Alcantara as a pitching prospect, hoping that he is now completely recovered from his surgeries.

And for my final draft pick in the tenth round, I grabbed reliever Garrett Whitlock to finish rebuilding the pen.

With the exception of Jacob Wilson, this was what I will refer to as my "Duracell Draft", as there were nothing but the two sides of the battery, pitchers and catchers.

This was largely a draft which relied on going with the flow and seeing what came my way. Overall, I'm quite happy with it.

Now, let's see how the team does. :)

The Illini men's basketball team is going to the Final Four, following an exciting victory over Iowa. I realized that the game had started and tuned in when the Illini were trailing 12-2.

It got better for them after that.

Now let's see how many other Big Ten teams can arrive in the Final Four.

It was over sixty degrees this morning, so you'd think it would be a lovely time for Opening Day at Wrigley Field.

You would think that incorrectly.

Gretchen was good enough to drop me at the Skokie Swift after we got some breakfast and the temperature was dropping rapidly. It was below fifty degrees at game time, which would *still* have been ok.

That is, it would have been ok except for the high wind blowing directly in from the north, right at the first base side of the park, which was where I was sitting. Five innings of that was enough.

The fact that the Cubs were trailing substantially didn't help, but the Cubs could have been *leading* substantially and it would not have kept me in those seats today.

Maybe if it were game seven of the World Series.

Of course, if it were October, I would have worn my parka.

Tomorrow is Cubs Opening Day and Gretchen is going to drop me off at the Skokie Swift so that I can reasonably get to the park since the Remote Parking won't be open for a weekday day game. Unfortunately, the Cubs have moved the Remote Parking lot this year so that it is over near Lake Shore Drive, which might benefit people who already have the option of taking the Red Line down to the park, but which is -- I suspect, as I haven't driven it yet -- going to be a lot more inconvenient for those of us coming from points northwest.

I guess I'll find out.

To add to tomorrow's entertainment, we got a notice from Public Works today that they are turning off our water for 6-8 hours starting at 8 AM tomorrow morning for work on a water main, followed by a boil order. This means that we are going to be getting up very early, while we still have water.

Pitchers (and catchers!) and such have been filled so that there will be some water available while I'm off watching the Cubs.

We had talked about making chili for dinner tomorrow, but -- all things considered -- ordering in Chinese is looking like a better bet. :)

Having spent most of yesterday working on work, I spent most of today working on different bits of work. :)

I am *still* going to Cubs Opening Day on Thursday, unless my knee (which is gradually improving) decides to become very, very bad. I am working to avoid this.

Having gotten the last set of revisions to financial statements, my accountant was able to finish up my taxes. To my surprise, we owe money this year. This is largely due to my withholding at work being not as much as it needs to be, which means that I will also get to make estimated tax payments this year.

Yay!

Oh, and property taxes are due April 1st.

I will get through this. I just need to avoid doing anything stupid.

I can do that. :)