My older son got the full treatment today at the orthodontist.

The picture isn't great... I think I caught him mid-blink and it's with a little cellular telephone camera, but it gives you a good idea.

He'll be a lot less happy later today when his mouth starts to ache. They say that he'll be tender for a week or so. He'll probably have me wrapped around his little finger for a little while.

To top it all off, he's going through this big change right after the big change of starting Junior High. That's already caused some worries and some tears, but in all honesty, I think he's already doing a lot better than I did when I started Junior High.

When I think of him, I can't help but feel loved. He's a wonderful son.

Yesterday I received my first paycheck from Altiris. I also received my severance check from Symantec. I found it ironic that they would both come on the same day.

Things are going well at Altiris. I'm starting to feel a tiny bit comfortable with some of the stuff I'm working on, which is a good sign. I can't wait until a few months down the road when I know (for the most part) what I'm doing. But for now, I'm content to learn, and, more importantly, my boss is content with that as well. I'm in a good work environment. I'm actually already starting to enjoy myself at work. That's DEFINATELY a good thing.

As for my severance check from Symantec... HOLY FREAKING CRAP! Thanks for taking so much of it, Uncle Sam. I hope you enjoy your interest-free loan until April, you bloated, greedy government you!

It's interesting to me to think about how much it will cost Symantec to close their American Fork lab. The people that were there were, for the most part, people that had been with Symantec for multiple years. So realistically, it cost Symantec a couple MILLION dollars just in severance packages. If they're paying COBRA health insurance for the people they laid off, there's an additional $1300+ per month per laid off employee. And then there's the cost of flying management back and forth, the cost of moving tons and tons of computer equipment from American Fork to Houston, TX... Millions of dollars were spent to relocate engineering positions from one location to another.

Yet businesses do this type of thing on a regular basis. I'm sure that Symantec thinks it will more than make up those costs by running ONE lab in Houstan instead of the two labs.

And then I start thinking again that none of this matters any more to me. It's still difficult to stop thinking of Symantec as "we" and Altiris as "you" and to reverse those positions.

I still maintain that Symantec was a great place to work for the five years that I worked there. Now I'm hoping that I'll be able to stay here at Altiris for a good long time.

I just saw a container of bottled water. On the back label, it said:

Untouched by man.

Until you drink it.

Why is that unique?

Are they implying that MOST bottled water is scooped by hand out of artesian springs? Or do they mean that most bottled water is slurped up out of streams and spit into bottles?

I mean, REALLY.

In a couple of hours, I dive into the unknown again. I'll be starting the next stage of my career.

It was hard to leave something that had become so comfortable. I hated leaving a place and people and a job that I enjoyed so much. I'm going to miss the people the most. I'm REALLY going to miss the day-to-day interaction with many of them.

Yet now, as I sit here contemplating what the next phase of my career will be like, I'm getting pretty excited.

There's always a little bit of fear associated with a major change like this. Most of the fear will probably be gone by the end of the day - at least, I HOPE that will be the case. Little nagging fears and self-doubts make me wonder not only if I'll like the work I'll be doing, but they make me wonder if I'm up to the task. Do I still have what it takes to quickly learn and understand new software projects and quickly be able to make a REAL contribution to the team that I'll be joining today?

But stronger than the fear I feel is the excitement that is associated with a new challenge. I've done this before, several times, and each time, I've been able to learn and grow and expand my skills. I chose the field I work in because I love the work. That hasn't changed, and hopefully, that won't change any time soon.

Yesterday was a good workout. A REALLY good workout.

When I was riding with friends last week, I decided to ride with one of them again. Every summer, the Bonneville Bike and Touring Club has an event called the ULCER. Yes, the ULCER. It's a stoopid acronym for Utah Lake Century Epic Ride.

In past years, it's actually gone around Utah Lake. This year, for various reasons from traffic to bad roads the entire course stayed south and east of Utah Lake. So we decided that this year, it should have been called the UCCER, the Utah County Century Epic Ride. Of course, we forgot to tell that to the Bonneville Bike and Touring Club.

It was a REALLY fun ride. A couple friends of the friend I rode with work at Altiris, so I was able to get to know a couple of my new colleagues during the ride.

For a little while, I thought that I was going to run into trouble. About 25 miles into the ride, I got into a group that was moving at a really fast clip - around 25 miles an hour. I stuck with them for about a half hour, then the tops of my calves started feeling like they wanted to cramp up. So I dropped off the back of the group and made it the rest of the way to the next stop where I met up again with the group I was riding with. A couple had stayed with the fast group, and a couple had slipped back before I did.

After that, we stayed with a slower group until the halfway point. But after the halfway point, I got my second wind. My friend, his brother, and I were able to maintain 20-21 miles per hour for the next leg of the trip, and I "pulled" nearly half of the time. The leg after that was going extremely well too. We were continuing to maintain a speed around 20 miles per hour, despite a slight headwind.

Until...

We were making a left turn. I had dropped to the back of our group of three after pulling for about 5 miles. As I accelerated out of the turn, I heard a popping noise, then my back wheel sounded suddenly different.

I had broken a spoke. My back wheel was no longer true. It was rubbing against my brake pads where the spoke had broken.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

75.5 miles into the ULCER, I had a mechanical failure. Where was my team car with the spare wheel? Oh yeah. I'm not ON a team.

I limped another five miles to the lunch rest stop in Springville and had the bike shop guy look at it, but he didn't have the right tools to true my wheel, so my day was over. I called my wife and then ate lunch while I waited for her to come and pick me up.

But it was a FUN ride nonetheless. I was feeling strong and riding very well. I'll get my wheel fixed and my next century will be even better!

...of the loop!

Now many of you are saying "What the??"

Well, last year, when I was doing lots and lots of cycling, I decided I wanted to ride the Alpine Loop. I left my home in Pleasant Grove, rode to the mouth of Provo Canyon, and rode up the Provo River Parkway Trail and then continued up towards Sundance. It was about a quarter mile before I reached Sundance that I bonked. I could go NO further. No granny gear would have been large enough for me to continue. There was nothing left in the engine room.

Ever since that day, I've often looked up at Mt. Timpanogos, and every time I looked up, she seemed to be mocking me. MOCKING, I tell you!! She would taunt me as I rode my bike around town. She would taunt me as I drove here and there in the valley. She is nearly omnipresent in this valley, and it was time to either face my latest nemesis or move away. I just couldn't take the ridicule any more!

This morning, I gave it another shot, but this time, I brought a couple of friends along. You see, I could probably continue to take taunting from Mt. Timp, but I would never hear the end of it from these friends if they made it and I didn't.

It took us two hours to reach the summit. It took two hours to bike the 16.5 miles from my house to the top, averaging a wimpy eight and a quarter miles an hour. But the important thing is that WE MADE IT to the top. None of us had to get off and walk. Or push the others. Or hitchhike. The OTHER important thing is that the ride down was AMAZING! We brought our average speed up considerably, hitting 43.5 miles per hour at one point. What a RUSH!

My legs were not unlike hamburger from the climbing, so the ride from the mouth of Provo Canyon back home took a few minutes longer than it usually did, but I noticed that Mt. Timpanogos wasn't smirking at me any more. So if you notice that Timp. isn't as tall today as she looked yesterday, that's not erosion. It was my doing. I took her back down a notch where she belongs and now, FINALLY, she'll stop gloating.

Some statistics from this ride:
Distance: 43.5 miles
Time: 3 hours, 20 minutes
Average Speed: 13.6 miles per hour
Heart Rate Average: 161 beats per minute (My heart beat approximately 32,200 times on this ride.)
Heart Rate Maximum: 183 beats per minute
Estimated Calories Burned: 2,298

Don't run away in horror! I'm a geek, but in this case, I'm not going to go into techno-babble.

Technically speaking, it was a "summer party." But for some strange reason, nobody was in that much of a festive mood. At all.

Hmmm... I know that we had the shindig scheduled before half of the lab was let go and the other half were told that they would be losing their jobs by the end of the year, but honestly, how much fun could it be?

It was a strangely small gathering. It was a gathering of employees and their families, but it seemed much smaller than the last such party - the one that was employees only. The absence of so many people that I REALLY like was conspicuous to say the least.

There was a smattering of applause when the administrative assistant in charge said that there was no "executive" there to make a speech. If there would have been one present and if they had tried to make a speech and if there was a rope handy... It's scary to think what might have happened. Yes, I say this tongue firmly in cheek, but the last thing we needed was someone to tell us how well the company was doing now that we had all been stabbed in the collective back.

*sigh*

But the saddest part of all is that this seemed, to me, to be a last farewell. There will never be another such party. I won't be working with these people any more. I've been working with them for five years. They have become friends. I'm going to miss my day-to-day interaction with them.

Chances are, I'll fall out of touch with all but a few of them. Most of them, I may hear of or see once in a while, but I'll rarely, if ever come in contact with them again. That saddens me, but experience tells me this will happen.

So today, we got together and had lunch and roamed around Thanksgiving Point together. But it wasn't a party. It was goodbye.

Networking.

That's how you find a job these days. You network. You talk to everyone you know and let them know that you're looking and what you're looking for. Then you work on your own and look at job search sites and put out resumes. But you make sure that your personal network of friends, family, and colleagues are working for you as well.

On Monday of last week, I updated my resume. I had to track some people down from old jobs so I would have reference for potential employers to check.

That same day, I applied for a couple of positions at Altiris. My brother works there and he told me of the jobs that they had open. I also emailed a copy of my resume to my dad. Dad gave the resume to someone in his neighborhood. This guy's company called me at around 9:00 the next morning.

By Wednesday, I had interviews at both companies. On Thursday and Friday, I had the interviews, and now I have a verbal offer from Altiris and I fully expect to get an offer from the other company.

So now I'm waiting to hear back officially from the nice lady in Human Resources at Altiris. She called me back, and since Altiris and Symantec compete in a couple of areas, she had to ask me questions about competition and other such things. She'll run everything by legal, and by the end of the day, I should be able to stop by Altiris and pick up my official offer letter. Honestly, I don't see any reason not to sign it. Between the two, Altiris is the better opportunity.

That was FAST. Did I mention that the job market is really good for senior-level software engineers right now?

A week ago, I had a rather constant gnawing in the pit of my stomach. I was stressed out. There was SO much unknown that I had to deal with.

So I went to my network, and through my own family I found work. By DOING something about the unknown, I made the unknown less fear-inducing. I was able to find what will be my next "home" in my career.

And I'm WAY excited!

The work I'll be doing looks great. I like the people I interviewed with. I understand a LOT of the field I'll be working in. I'll be able to work with my brother, albeit indirectly.

Sure, there is still some "unknown" left to explore. I'm not completely at home in the development environment I'll be using at Altiris. I won't know the products at all. I'll be stumbling blindly through source code. I'll be the N00B that has to ask everyone else for help. I'll have to figure out culture and learn how to deal with new benefits and all of that stuff that comes with starting a new job.

But all that notwithstanding, I'm still excited. I'll learn. I'll grow. I'll thrive.

I've lost my job again.

The last time this happened, the best word to describe it would be "panic." At that time, we were living paycheck to paycheck. We were in debt up to our eyeballs. We could ill-afford even one day out of work. But after receiving a verbal offer from a company, I thought it was safe to quit my job. Boy was I wrong! I ended up out of work and I didn't have a single lead for a new job.

Fortunately, everything worked out well. I was hired by another company in less than a week. However, that experience was a wake-up call. We decided that we would never again be in that type of situation.

It's a good thing, because this time, we're not panicked at all. We're in a MUCH better position, financially. I won't actually lose my job until about a week before Christmas. With severance, bonuses, stock options, etc., I don't REALLY have to find a new job until April. Fortunately, the job market is good and I don't think I'll have much difficulty in finding work.

So what happened? Wasn't Symantec a good, stable place to work? My response to that question" Is there ANY good, stable place to work in the field of Information Technology?

Symantec isn't going away. They're not soon going to relinquish their spot as the leaders in information security. My particular product is the problem.

Last fall/winter, Symantec acquired the main competitor to the product I develop. The two products could coexist because my product is geared towards the large enterprise and the competing product works best in smaller enterprises. Or so they said.

At the time of the acquisition, they put the CEO of the other company in charge of both products, so it's no surprise that when they decided to combine the two products, MY lab was moved instead of the other product's lab.

On Thursday afternoon, the rumors were rampant and ugly when a mandatory meeting was set for the following morning at 9am. On Friday morning, we heard that the rumors were, indeed true. There would be a "realignment" of resources. While I was at the meeting, I was told that I would receive an email telling me of my "disposition" during this "realignment."

The email came and said, in part:

This email serves as notification that your position has been identified for a reduction in force, with a transitional employment period through 12/19/06.

So now I'm in "transitional" employment. All engineering positions for my product will be moved to Houston, Texas and Pune, India.

It could have been worse. About half of the people on site were told that Friday was their last day. They spent the rest of the day cleaning up their belongings. Most of the rest of us were told that our last day of employment at Symantec would be December 19th. About a dozen were given relocation packages and were offered positions in Houston.

And so it ends. Sometime between now and the end of the year, I will start a new job.

I'm sad about that.

It's been a good job. I've worked with intelligent people. I've worked long hours toward the success of my product and my company. I love the location, the pay, the benefits... But all of that will end, at the latest, on December 19th.

Now I turn my attention forward, towards new opportunities to learn, towards new friends, towards new experiences.

To say I'm upset about this would be a HUGE understatement.

This year, I watched the Tour de France. I watched it intently. I enjoyed stage after stage. I loved watching the team tactics. I grimmaced at the crashes, especially that of Bobby Julich. It was an unbelievable tour this year, especially now that it is no longer the "Tour de Lance."

The most incredible story of the Tour was the story of the eventual winner, Floyd Landis. He was the most consistent rider throughout the entire Tour. He seemed to have everything. He could ride the time trials. He could climb in the Pyrenees. His team, though not altogether the strongest, seemed to be able to help him out in clutch moments.

Then, everything exploded. Stage 16, the much-storied climb to Alp d'Huez seemed to be more than Landis could handle. He completely bonked on the last climb. He ended up losing more than ten minutes to Oscar Pereiro of Spain, ending up in eleventh place -- eight minutes and eight seconds behind in the overall classification. Everyone thought such a horrible performance so late in the Tour was the end of Landis' hopes for winning the Tour. Eight minutes and eight seconds was considered an insurmountable deficit.

But like a phoenix emerging from the ashes, stage 17 brought renewed hope for Landis. He attacked on the first climb of the most difficult stage of the tour. He rode the legs off of the peleton and bridged the gap between the peleton and a breakaway group of a dozen or so riders. Then the left the breakaway in the dust. Mile after mile, he left rider after rider behind him. At the end of the stage, he was in third place with a time deficit of only 30 seconds.

Landis' stage 17 was described by everyone with superlatives. It was an amazing ride only a day after a horrible ride. Bob Roll, who himself rode in the Tour de France, and who has watched the Tour for almost half of its existence called the ride the greatest single-day ride in the history of the Tour.

Landis wouldn't gain or lose time on stage 18, but during stage 19, an individual time trial, he was able to re-gain the yellow jersey with an advantage of almost a minute. He wore the yellow jersey triumphantly into Paris and was declared the winner of the Tour de France.

Today, that all changed. Team Phonak was notified by UCI, professional cycling's governing body, that Floyd Landis' sample showed an "unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone" when he was tested after stage 17.

Phonak has suspended Landis pending the outcome of a second test. Cyclists provide two samples after each race. Landis can now request that his second "backup" sample be tested in his presence. If that one also tests positive for elevated levels of testosterone, Landis will be stripped of his yellow jersey and will be fired by team Phonak.

I'm stunned. I'm hoping beyond hope that this was a mistake. But it's hard to get a false positive for testosterone levels. It's also hard to get a measurable performance boost from testosterone that might cause such an amazing performance as Landis had during stage 17. Unfortunately, testosterone might be used to mask the presence of other performance-enhancing substances and is easier to explain away than something else like elevated red blood cell counts.

Did he dope? I hope not. I'm reserving judgment until after the second sample is tested and the results are published.

Regardless of the results, Landis' performance and his win in the Tour de France is now tainted.