Well folks, I haven't been on here for awhile. Not by choice, but rather by
circumstance. Economy has been bad, and the shoe dropped on me last week.
Sort of knew that it was coming, but it was still a shock to get called into
the boss's office and be told. I'm still at work until the middle of October,
but after that I find myself joining the hundreds of thousands who are out
there looking for something.

After the initial shock wore off a bit, I realized that this tough situation
might actually be a blessing in disguise. For the first time in 30 years,
I'm actively contemplating a change in career. After spending 30 years in
the computer industry, I'm now thinking about switching careers and going
into the medical field.
It's not as easy as it seems, as I just turned 53 this year, but thank the
Lord, I'm in pretty good health, so if the powers that be in the government
can pop for some retraining, I'm going to try to get into the nursing field.

I can hear the snickering now. A 53 yr old male nurse...what's the world
coming to...hehe...Have to say that I thought of that as well. However, when
my mom was sick, and spent a year in the hospital a couple of years back, it
was me there helping her to learn to walk again, encouraging her to do the
exercises to get her hands to work again, and now 5 years later, she's almost
back to her old self, knitting, going out with her friends, and doing just
about all the things that she used to do. And I have to tell you that it feels
pretty good that I was able to have a small part in her recovery.

So I figure that if I can do that for my mom, why not do that for others?

So wish me luck dealing with the government bureaucracy to get funding for
training, and wish me luck in getting my old brain back into gear so I can
wrap my head around all of the new things that I will have to learn so that
I can be the best I can in this new profession.

Oh, and Dan, I'm going to have to put any new knife purchases off for a little
while, say like a year or two, but I will be drooling over every new offering
that comes along, and will be keeping a list of all the ones that I really
like, so that when I get back onto my feet, I can make a few purchases.

Cheers all.