Linda's blog has moved...

For all of you who have patiently been waiting for a new blog here, your wait is over. What has happened is that I've begun blogging (still seldom, but occasionally) at www.lindao.org . If you'd like to see my recent musings...you'll have to go there.

I apologize for this...but I guess my abilities to keep things up and running and make the news known to my followers is severely lacking.

Happy Halloween!

Linda O

Is anyone still out there?

I am embarassed and a little angry with myself. I knew it had been a long time since my previous blog entry, but I had no idea that it has been 5 months!

Well, for those of you who are my stalwart fans, here's something new for you: http://www.lindao.org/

It's my new webpage and I think it will have a bit more activity on it than this does! I will put a link to it from here (if I can), and I've already put a link to here from there.

Life has been going along quite nicely. My new job is now 6 months old and I'm still ecstatic about it. My friends and family, for the most part, are hale and hearty...although I do have some STC friends who are fighting cancer and having a really tough time of it. (Love to Suzanna and Janis at this tough time!)

I have two new ventures coming up in my professional life: I am co-presenting an online certificate course in Technical Editing Fundamentals for STC that starts in March and I will be teaching an online Copyediting for Technical Communicators course for UCSD Extension that starts in April. No, I'm not a glutton for punishment--I'm looking ahead to retirement someday and want to be sure I have a few opportunities to supplement Social Security!

Please do check out my website...and to be honest, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with this site. If you are still out there...thank you for your patience! I hope to be more communicative on my new site. Heaven knows I couldn't do worse!

Blessings to you all,
Me

September thoughts

September is almost over. Some folks have a goal to blog once a day. I have a goal to blog once a month! And, with September fast disappearing, I'd better get busy. Don't think that I don't care about blogging just because I do it so seldom. In fact, I often experience things that make me think, "Wow, that's a great thing to blog about." But, then I don't. So, today I'm going to write about one of those blog-worthy things.

I was getting gas in my car before taking a short trip recently and a man came to my window and said he would pump the gas for me. Remember when we took that for granted? Instead, I was wary. What did he want? A tip? My credit card? Against my better judgment, I let him do it and yes, I even let him swipe my card for the total. He filled the tank, washed my windows, and checked the air in my tires. I was chastizing myself for being too wary and gave him a dollar tip. Then, I drove away without noticing my gas gauge.

A few miles later, I looked down and saw that the gauge was reading empty! How could that happen? I saw him pump the gas. It had to be some type of scam! I was sure that he managed to get the $35 for something other than my gasoline. So, I drove back to the station, turned off the car, and went in to speak to the cashier. The man in question was nowhere around, but she said that he often came by to "help out" and she didn't think he was doing anything but being nice. So, I went back to the car to show her (I even had the receipt) and turned the key. The gas needle popped all the way up to full. My only possible explanation is that he had probably over-filled it, creating some kind of vacuum that made the needle misbehave. I was pretty embarrassed. The man really was just doing a random act of kindness. And here I was, immediately jumping to the conclusion that the act of kindness was a scam. How different our world is these days than it was only a few decades ago! Remember when we let folks fill our gas tanks, wash our windows, and fill our tires as a matter of course? And, if we had a flat tire on the road, we hoped someone would pull over to help us, and were quite grateful when they did!

I remember taking a cross-country trip with my daughter (she was about 11) back around 1980. My little VW bug broke down often. People were helping us all along the way...in fact, once, somewhere deep in Iowa, I heard a nasty noise and knew we were going to break down if I didn't do something. I drove into a small mechanics shop in an even smaller town. The mechanic was friendly, but didn't have the part he needed to fix the bug. Instead, to get the part, he drove me about 100 miles to the last large town we had passed through. While we made the trip, I LEFT MY DAUGHTER WITH HIS FAMILY! Connie didn't want to come with us and I agreed to leave her behind. Naturally, it all worked out fine. When the mechanic and I returned, Connie and I joined the family for dinner and stayed the night in a motel. The next morning, we got the car and hit the road again.

I wonder if that type of trust and consideration still exists somewhere. I sure hope so. I miss it.

August, STC, and blessings

August. Summer is finally here in San Diego. Temperatures up to high 70s/low 80s near the coast…around 85-90 at my house, and approaching triple digits in the east-county valley communities. Not hot compared to the rest of the country, but keep in mind that most of us who live in older homes in San Diego have NO CENTRAL A/C! So, each morning I close all the windows and shades in my little 1100-square-foot house and leave the ceiling fans on low. I have a window-box mini-air-conditioner in my dining room, and I keep it set at 80 during the day on the energy-saver setting. That way, when I get home, all I have to do is open all the windows, and start all the fans (ceiling and floor). Within an hour or two, the house is cool, the outside temp is down into the 70s, and the breeze coming in through my bedroom windows at 10 pm feels cool enough for me to need a sheet as a cover. Ahhh, living in San Diego is truly a dream. I am blessed.

Since I’m talking about blessings, let me continue: In my previous post, I shared with you that STC volunteer work helped me land my current job as a Strategic Analyst. Well, the job is almost a month old and I love it. I’m still on a steep learning curve, but the climb isn’t too bumpy and I have a lot of new colleagues helping me climb. I think the stress of my former job helped me make excuses to back off from STC volunteering these last couple of years. But, the stress must be diminishing because over the past month or two, I’ve picked up the pace and have a begun a few things for me and the Society.

When I saw the news about submitting a proposal for the 2011 STC Summit, I did something different: I used Facebook and Twitter to ask for volunteers to serve on a panel I had thought up. Within less than a day, I had several responses and now I have a panel! It was so easy. In years past, I would send emails to folks I knew and ask for their help. That would engender a slurry of emails and phone calls and well, you get the idea. I much prefer the new way.

I also helped my local chapter the other day and sent a "Welcome to 2010/2011" email to everyone on the STC San Diego membership list. We have 84 members. I think we had about 300+ back in the days when I was the chapter president. Oh well. Everything ebbs and flows. I’m confident that the current members will keep the chapter running. The admin council is making some tough decisions to save money, but the members are supportive: they understand that changes are needed and they are ready to help get us through these tough times.

I have other STC projects in mind…as they develop, I’ll let you know about them. And, for those of you coming to San Diego for LavaCon, keep a lookout for me! I have no jobs to do, so I can actually attend sessions and learn things! What a concept.

A New Chapter for Linda

Well, that autobiography I keep threatening to write will have a new chapter...on Monday, I return to work at a military command! Today is my last day of employment with Hewlett Packard Software. It was a long 5.5 years, sometimes good, sometimes not. But, when we look back, aren't all jobs like that? So, rather than look at all the reasons I wanted to leave HP, I thought I'd focus on all the reasons I'm thrilled to be moving to this new adventure.

1. I am returning to science and engineering. Although my employer is OMNITEC Solutions, Inc., a Bethesda-based defense contractor, I will be supporting and working onsite at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). This is their mission: The Navy's designated technical authority and acquisition command for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (C4ISR), business information technology and space systems. Although they include IT, they sure have a lot of other stuff going on! I began my career and even received my degree while working for a predecessor of SPAWAR, and going back to it now fits perfectly.

2. I am using experience I have gained in STC. For all those who suggest they get zip for their membership fees in the Society for Technical Communication, I say pshaw! My new title for OMNITEC is Senior Strategic Planner/Analyst. I would never have had the cojones to apply for this position if I hadn't had a dozen years working with STC contributing to their strategic planning. Yes, I did a little of it in other jobs, but the bulk of my experience was at STC board meetings. So, for all those naysayers, out there, I say STC ROCKS!

3. I got a nice raise. :-)

4. I will, for the most part, have a flexible work schedule that allows me to work 9-hour days and have alternate Fridays off! Naturally, sometimes, duty will call on those days, but considering my normal day at HP was 9 til 6 or 7, with NO regular day off for compensation, I will definitely be ahead of the game. (I had years on the 5/4/9 schedule before I left SPAWAR's predecessor lab--the Naval Ocean Systems Center--how sweet it is to get it back!)

5. It's closer to home. My new work site is 11 miles from home; HP was 23 miles from home. Nice!

6. The hangar I work in has walls! Well, I'm referring to inside walls, not outside ones. And, yes, I will still be working at a cubicle, but the cube is in a room that only holds about 6 cubes. Then, you walk through a real door attached to floor-to-ceiling walls into another room that has several cubes, etc. I guess you might call each room a "pod": the setup is to have everyone facing a wall with backs all toward the middle of the room, and I don't recall any divider between folks. The big bosses still have real offices with conference tables, etc. At HP, we have rows and rows and rows of cubes all in one humongous room--and it doesn't matter who you are, no one has an office. No walls except those around the bathrooms, the outside of the building and some conference rooms. We have HUNDREDS of folks all in one room. I won't miss the HP cube farm at all.

7. I get to write about cool stuff. Part of my duties is to write strategic documents, guidance documents, vision documents, etc. I will be working with program managers and military commanders (captains and admirals) and will ghost write for them. How cool is that?

8. It was time for a big change. Energetically, this was meant to be. It feels right. I visualized a place that was just like this and did a whole lot of "thinking and praying and hoping and wishing" and it manifested. Life is good.

9. Social networking works. Someone who knew someone who knew me sent me a note asking me to help network a job in San Diego. I read it, realized I wanted to apply myself, and although I didn't exactly work my network, the person who offered my name to OMNITEC sure did. I hope whoever that person is knows how grateful I am! Maybe someday, I'll find out just how Nick at OMNITEC reached out to me. Or, maybe it should remain one of those anonymous, wonderful gifts that we pass along to someone else someday.

10. It makes me happy. And, in the long run, what more is there?