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The First Day of Summer

Yes, I know the actual first day of summer isn't for another month or so, but I feel like my summer's starting right now, today. [Edited to add: If you were looking for the explanation that I promised "later" in my last post, this is it.]

The company I was working for did a bit of restructuring recently, and in the process my position was eliminated. I found out last Monday, and Friday was my last day. A few things to get out of the way:

1. I am not sad.
2. I wish the company and the people who still work there well. There are no hard feelings at all.
3. It was a *really* hard decision to leave my wonderful former job to take this one (the one that was just eliminated), but I think it was a the right one. I learned a lot in the past 10 months, got to try several new things, and expanded my horizons—in other words, I met the goals of the job switch.

And now it feels a lot like school's just let out for the summer. The vacation I've desperately needed is at hand, and then I need to start working again and planning for the future. I'm actually going to do a bit of work first, then vacation, then start planning for the future (aka job hunting full time). On my to-do list for this week and next:

• Update the Freeze website (it needs help, and I've been promising to help it forever).
• Add sample code to OpenAjax Metadata Specification (I'm continuing as co-chair of the IDE working group as an individual member).
• Start poking through the Mozilla source code. It's been a while since I've written anything in C++, and it'd be fun to get my hands dirty again.
• Scan Polaroids I took this weekend in Hunter, NY.
• Participate in end-of-year events at the Beaner's school.
• Blog more, both here and on my hockey site.
• Update resume.
• Give serious thought to what I want to do next (not just what I *could* do, but what I *want* to do).

I'm also going to read some books and do some gardening, but I'd do that anyway, employed or not. :-)