Just as the title states, today I received my first glimpse of the light at the end of this tunnel I find myself being flung through. I reminded the CEO of my current workplace that Thursday was my last day on site, and that if any future tasks were asked of me, I would agree to perform them remotely on a contract basis for the rate of $50 an hour. In response, he thanked me for my many years of devotion, and especially for all of my efforts to transition my workload. Despite the complaints I might have had privately over the years, my desired end result was accomplished today. I’m making a transition from one job to another without lighting any bridges on fire.

Oh sure, I’ve thought about burning the hell out of the bridge, on occasion. Mostly because it just seemed easier. But in reality, this is the best choice. This is a small town in which I live, and it never hurts to have—or retain—as many friends as you can. I may be inundated with business now, but it’s nice to have a backup plan—or at least, some place you can return to if nothing else works out. It looks like I’ll be leaving my current job with all of that well intact.

Meanwhile, other business is picking up, as always. We’re rapidly approaching the end of the month, and there are some things I need to get done by then for my new job. At home, almost all of the software I’m used to having at my fingertips has been reinstalled on my new computer (with the exception of most of my games, but they’re not high priorities), so I’m no longer relying on my old machine. I’ve even got Microsoft IIS and Apache web servers running on the same machine, and even the same port, thanks to a little HOSTS file hacking. (I only use the servers for local testing, so nothing else matters.) I even spent two hours playing Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil last night with nary a crash, or even a hiccup. This despite the fact that the video cards were running at close to an 80°C core temperature. (But fear not, such temps are well within operating range for a GeForce 6800GT.)

My ever-indecisive brain continues to scatter from one corner to another when it comes to what sort of car I want to populate my garage with in the next couple of years. My latest conceivable option, now that I no longer have a daily commute, and now that Apple might soon be taking on a regular daytime-hours, weekday-based position at her workplace, is to build KITT into a daily driver. This would involve a full mechanical restoration, a brand new coat of show-quality black paint, and finally, a complete install of all the necessary Knight Rider conversion parts—scanner, dash, consoles, etc. Such a maneuver has similar costs to the new vehicles of choice that I’d be looking at, except since it would be a specialty car, it would depreciate at a drastically reduced rate—perhaps even appreciate if Knight Rider makes a comeback in the movies or anything like that. Additionally, my new workplace has already expressed interest in using the replica as a show piece for their technology products. How cool would it be to get some free, functional high-tech gear for KITT?

Not to say I’m dead-set on the idea—hell, I’m also considering a Pontiac Solstice or a Saturn Sky—so it’s safe to say that my mind is far from made up.

This office is stifling hot today. Seems like the A/C hasn’t been working properly most of the time, at least not in the last couple of weeks. There have been some nondescript building engineers walking through here checking on the air output, but I don’t really know what’s going on. Not that it really matters, because I’m only going to be spending another three days working in here.

Friday I’ll probably head over to my new “base of operations” to meet with the guys there for a little while, but in reality it’s gonna be time to get to work on a lot of stuff even before then. It’s exciting, but at the same time, daunting.

Guess that’s it for now.