Cycling -The last week saw the end of the cyclocross season. Not sure how I feel about that, in a way racing with 140 other riders and all the grandeur bells and whistles of an overly extroverted Cross Crusade setup every week gets a little wearing. One thing to note is that due to the large amount of mud around here, sing;e speed cyclocross is definitely the way forward. Since the weather is about turn cold, i'm gonna turn to the rollers for indoor fitness, at the moment my rollers and track bike are at work, where I have been riding once a week at lunch, along with my regular 30mile commute to and from work. As things have been cooling down the fog in the morning creates some beautiful scenes. Here's a regular view:-
Work - it's been a strange couple of weeks, large pressure has been going on at the executive level, the bad economy realization is putting pressure on the top brass, they in turn make non inclusive decisions and put pressure on the middle management layer below who are now all pissey because they feel excluded, guess where this pressure goes next, yeah you guessed it , down to me. Being in a job role where I am essentially a "change generator" it makes things difficult when change starts to be seen as economic risk, as the economic pressure mounts my role gets harder, all of a sudden the middle management layer are short term focused and cannot see beyond the end of their feet. Is this the right attitude, i'm not one to debate, but i know it impacts me and the willingness to think outside the regular boundaries for product/marketing managers who I work with. Some call this swimming upstream, but at the end of the day i'm employed to change things, new product development does this in a manner of ways. the cycle of "no can do" is depressing, the cycle of "not gonna even consider that" is even more depressing. Time will tell, maybe I will stop pushing as hard for cool stuff, but i doubt it. Change and cool stuff doesn't have to be taken as cost adders, it's just that when the heats on, that's exactly what the middle management in the short term take it as.
Snow - Today (Sunday) we got the first snow in the city, with wind blowing hard we got about 2" accumulation. Portland unlike Chicago or other cities that are used to getting snow, is pretty unprepared, many roads are sheets of ice. This snow is a good and bad for most, November was a mild month and the snow resorts on the closest mountain (mount hood) have been closed to lack of snow. As I speak, Mt. Hood Meadows resort has opened and has 30" of snow at the base - the begining of good news for those of us who want to go boarding (like me). Roll on next weekend.
House Hunting - When I first moved to Portland (March) I said to myself that I would eventually purchase a home and gave myself a year to get to know things, see how the job worked out etc. Well, 8 months later - now, I am searching the market, the timing is good, interest rates are down, there is a glut of propertys on the market and the state of economy is needing stimulation, ie rates can still drop more :) At the moment the current rate is about 5.25% on a 30yr fixed, which is historically the lowest.
I have looked at a few homes (bungalows) and condos (Flats) in the area, but I still have a lot of searching to do. I have a good real estate agent who lives in my area and knows the goings on, so we will see.
1 comment:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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