Well, I haven't crashed on my bike for a week -- I hope this means that I am done with that for awhile. The bike jersey pictured above is a birthday present from Ron -- isn't it great? I love it, and Ron was a little bit unsure about giving it to me. He thought I might be a little offended, but what the heck, I AM slow!

The guys are playing soccer these days, and it looks like Ron is going to be coaching all three teams at this point. He had already volunteered to coach James's and Elias's teams, but it turns out that Andy's team doesn't have a coach since the person who had volunteered bailed out before practices even started. The head of the soccer league has asked all the parents on the team (and his son is also on that team) if they could do it, and no one has stepped forward, so I think Ron and the head of the league are going to split the duties. Ron is such a good guy! You couldn't pay me enough to do that.

Ron has resigned his position at his current job and will be starting a new job on 29 September. He started looking around for a new job when he noticed that people were getting laid off fairly often and the company was not spending any money on their group. Ron has been using a pretty old laptop to do his work on, and so it takes a long time to get anything done. The company has refused to buy them new computers, and has also refused to upgrade their internet connection. All of these things made Ron feel like the company was a little unstable.

Ron interviewed at one place here in Tucson that works with medical telemetry devices. He felt the interview went well, and the guy who interviewed him told him that he had made an offer to another guy the day before they interviewed Ron and that they could only afford to hire one person at that time. Ron thought the work sounded really interesting and told them to keep him in mind, if that other guy didn't take the job. Ron didn't hear from them again, so he assumed that the other guy had taken the job.

Last week, they call Ron and make him an offer. The other guy had taken the position, and had reported to work, and had lasted a week. He was gone. They wouldn't tell Ron why the guy had left so fast (or if he was fired), but told him that when he started work there, he would hear the stories then. I am dying to hear what happened with this guy, and I really hope it was HIS problem, not the company's.

This company is very small and has only been in existence for 5 years. There are only 8 people working there, and at this point, they are still a limited liability corporation, though they are in the process of converting over to a stock based corporation, though a private one. They have a device on the market in Canada. It is doing well, and this same device has been approved for market here by the FDA and the FCC (since it is a wireless thing). The biggest issue so far is that they provide medical insurance, but no other benefits. They are still in the process of determining all that kind of stuff, and they are still writing the employee handbook.

I think this job could work out very well for Ron, and I think it is a better match than the other companies he has worked for since we moved out here because at this company he will be doing all sorts of work, and not just limited to software.

The only other news is that today I headed out to pick up James from preschool, and realized that I was running late. I hit the garage door button and headed out. Unfortunately, I didn't notice, until it was WAY too late, that the garage door hadn't finished going up. So, I have no glass in the rear of my minivan now. This is a pain in my rear end -- and very annoying. I am glad none of the guys were in the car when I did it, and that the garage door is not damaged.