American Idle

Friday, October 19th - the day I did absolutely nothing. It wasn't that I was feeling sick or anything, I just decided to relax and give my aging body some much needed rest.

After taking my wife to work, I immediately returned home and went back to bed. I woke up at around 11 am, surfed the internet for a while and took a leisurely lunch. Washed the dishes afterwards and then back on the computer to prep my photos for the 2008 calendar edition which I plan to sell to augment my dwindling finances. OK, that may be considered "work" but for me it's all fun and I enjoyed doing it.

I picked up my wife at 4;30 and we were back home before 5 pm. As I write this, I reminisce of the times when I was working. Friday has always been a day of anticipation - counting down each day from Monday eagerly waiting for the respite of the weekend. By 5 pm, with nerves frayed and my mind stressed almost to the point of mental collapse, I leave the office, knowing in my heart that this whole routine would be repeated come Monday morning.

But that was now a thing of the past. Here I was on a Friday wallowing in almost sinful idleness.

Life after Indymac

Today is day two of my being unemployed. So far, so good. I definitely was not missing my work at Indymac.

So what did I do? Why, go birding, of course! I headed off to Santa Fe Dam in the hope of seeing the Palm Warbler reported by Andrew Lee just a couple of days earlier. Well, I dipped on that but it was a great morning of birding nonetheless! It was a gray day so there wasn't much photography done. Still, birds were everywhere, particularly the Yellow-rumped Warblers. Highlight of the day was a Canyon Wren ( !!! ). I tried taking its picture from the Jeep but it was away from the driver's side so I pointed my camera against the (dirty) windshield while the engine was running (and therefore the camera was shaking). I couldn't leave the driver's seat because I was in the middle of a one-lane road. So I decided to park and go after the bird on foot, but then it was already gone when I returned to the place where it was chasing insects earlier.

Another highlight was a Northern Flicker that was foraging on the ground. Flickers are cousins to the Woodpeckers and normally they would hunt for food on tree trunks. So it was a bit of a surprise to see this one away from a tree. Also, this time, it was on the driver's side and I was able to get some decent shots from my vehicle.

Around 11 am, my ex-officemates called and invited me to have lunch at our favorite Mexican place. We had good food and even better conversation - seems like only yesterday that we worked at the same office. Wait, it was really only yesterday!

Anyway, they had to go back to work and I was left with nothing to do. Well, that's not exactly true, there were lots of work to do at home. Thus, the whole afternoon was spent fixing things that need to be fixed, tidying up things that need to be tidied up.

These home "makeovers" continued until Wednesday, and most likely will become a daily activity for me.

Some officemates speculated that I will be bored when I no longer have a job. The way things are going, I do not think so.