Last night was the lunar eclipse on the Winter Solstice.  I didn't expect to feel anything, but I was nervous and apprehensive.  This morning I am calm and hopeful.  I did get to see part of it, but, as expected, the overcast Seattle sky obscured the moon's return. 

I'm working!  Yay!  I have a full time position as Systems Administrator in downtown Seattle, and I'm finding that I have a lot less personal time left over to do things like blog.  I was hired as one of three System Administrators, although the job changed a couple of weeks after I was hired.  I am now one of two System Administrators.  There has been a lot of recent upheaval where I work, including an office relocation and many employees leaving. 

So far, though (with the exception of the long commute and the expected few holidays), the job seems in every way like my ideal.  I'm learning a lot quickly thanks to my lead coworker and mentor.  I'm spending part of my time completing assignments and part exploring the systems and reading company documentation so that I'll be prepared to take on more work as soon as possible.

I discovered an error in the December index stylesheet and corrected it.  It was duplicating my logo all over my webpage.  Other than that, and this page, I haven't made any changes on alwanza.com since my last blog. 

Work is keeping me pretty busy.  I spent a long time setting up my workstation, which is Linux with a Windows VM.  But now that it is done, I'm working very efficiently.  It took me 3 days to get the Nvidia driver working on the dual monitors, I had to remake the Windows VM and it still crashes at shutdown, although reboot works.  It took a while to get sound working, to get flash working on the i386 vm, to get a printer installed. 

Tom and I went in the Coot to join the Christmas ships at Kirkland and Matthews Beach.  It was lots of fun to be on the water and see the beautiful lights.  I've been enjoying working in downtown Seattle, so near the market.  I never get bored at lunch and I get to take a walk.  I can choose flat or up and down a hill (my usual preference) and it prevents me from stiffening up too much during the day. 

I've noticed that the bad economy has kept the usual feeding frenzy at the stores to a minimum and that - with the exception of cosmetics, movies, fast food (see businesses that do well in bad economies) - the offerings at the stores aren't that interesting or different from last year. 

With my first paycheck I purchased a new chair for my desk at home and my knee is magically improving.  I suspected the old chair was the problem.  It is nice to have money again to pay bills and to buy the life improvement toys I've been putting off purchasing for the last two years.

Last night's Solstice eclipse was interesting.  I noticed that the moon disappeared from the opposite side as its normal cycle.  We had a snowfall in November (which is coming to be the norm for Seattle) and since then it has been cold, even frosty a few mornings, but not snowy.  Maybe it will snow this weekend.