I best start selling some art!

When I was still working in high tech, one of my fellow engineers walked into my cubicle, sat down, and asked "how many times have you been laid off?"

I thought that was a very strange question, and told him so, and told him I had never been laid off.

His eyes bugged out. He thought that was highly unusual, given the state of high tech in the Portland area from the 80's through the 90's.

Then I told him that the Good Prince had never been laid off either. He thought that was doubly strange.

Well, after a combined approximately 50 years in high tech (and related industries), we've had a layoff! Yes, the Good Prince took a voluntary layoff from his job and today was his last day. He came home with a packet of information of his 'Career Transition Benefits!' Career transition. Who think up these terms? The benefit, I guess, would be the severance pay. The first time either one of us got a severance. Unfortunately, it was not as good a deal as they had offered during the last layoff. Too bad...but it's better than no severance pay.

Anyhow, so he's reviving Five Bats (consulting). And this time, he says his website will say something other than 'There is nothing here.' (Which is what it says now, check it out.)

The garden in this 100+ degree heat

For years, I've been trying to pitch my garden to Portland Open Studios for promotion, and finally, this year, when my garden is looking pretty weedy, they want pictures! So here's one I snapped today, when we had about 3 seconds of cloud cover. Weeds and all:



More about the studio remodeling

Mainly, I'm just waiting for the floor guy to install on Saturday. In the mean time, I'm doing a few things that I can do, like hanging things back up on the wall, and making this bulletin board:



I bought the frame at a garage sale for $0.25 a few years ago and made a bulletin board, except that I didn't quite get enough of those cork tiles. Rather than making another trip to the store, I just made do. Well, this time, I did it right. Here's a close up of the frame. It's really a very nice frame, and you can't beat 25 cents!



And I'm also getting other things accomplished while I wait for the floor guy—Portland Open Studios artists' profiles and website changes are all getting done...