A few places we have been to so far in New Zealand:

Auckland
The Coromandel Peninsula
Geothermal Rotorua

It's 1:30 in the AM here in Los Angeles. I am up in our friend's guest bedroom reading an email telling me techies.com, my former employer, has gone through another round of layoffs. It would seem that they are nearing the end. I pretty much knew that techies was on the way out since the big round of layoffs in December 2000, but its strange to see it all fall apart. To be honest, I couldn't care less about the company as a business, but I can't help but think about all the people, the people that were a large part of my life for the last couple of years. There were some good times had there.

We spent the last few days in Las Vegas visiting some friends. Vegas is a strange and even stranger place. We spent some time hiking in the desert. On the way home we stopped at a local airport and took a glider ride. I have spent a fair amount of time in a single engine aircraft, but being up in a glider was indescribable.

I'm am just freakin' loving our vacation so far. Seeing old friends, road trips to different cities with books on tape, days of just plain old relaxing. We're off tomorrow for Vegas and some camping in the desert. Don't get me wrong, I really miss my gray cubical walls and the florescent lights. I really do. Really.

After 2 1/2 years as a techies.com employee, I have been laid off. I had just begun a leave that would have lasted for three months, and as I really didn't figure my job would be around when I got back, it wasn't much of a surprise. Now I am officially unemployed. This is to be my dot com swan song if you will, the end of a journey to the end of a rainbow whose pot of gold turned out to be a tuna fish sandwich and an unemployment check. Not a terribly unique or exciting story, just another page in the book of dot com stupidity.

I just realized that today marks the one year anniversary of the sweet logging goodness ™ that is Bitter Pill. Its kinda amazing how much drivel one person can spew forth in one years time.

We are gypsies. We have no home, no jobs, no responsibilities. We have food in our bellies, and the wind is at our backs.

Today, for the first time in a long time, I slept late. I didn't have to worry about packing, closing on the house, fitting three tons of crap in a two ton storage locker, finding a place to store my car, moving servers out of my basement, getting a passport, fixing toilets for inspections, cleaning up nervous dog vomit. I spent the day in San Diego with an old friend, and left the stress and anxiety of the past three weeks behind. It's the first good day I have had in a long while.

Viva las vacaciones